Elisha Daemon

by E. C. Ambrose

“I am not at all sure it is wise to bring a foreigner,” said Cardinal Renart, “especially a practitioner of the black arts, into the city of the Pope himself, especially in such dark days as this. Guards! Attend him well. We shall find a cart to transport the witch and his familiar.”

  The soldiers who accompanied the two priests, including Harald, rode up to surround Elisha and Jude, some of them jostling Father Pierre, taking their master’s hint about how he should be treated.

  Brow furrowing, but only slightly, Father Pierre stepped out from between the soldiers. “Then there is no violence here against the Jews? You believe, Cardinal, that it is safe for them to proceed without escort to Avignon?”

  “Why shouldn’t it be? I say again, it is not your concern. We have been sent to ease your own passage, and surely their arrival will be eased by speeding your own.” Renart turned in his saddle to address a mounted priest behind him. “Arrange for a cart for the prisoners—barred if possible, chains if not.”

  Elisha checked the magic that rose within. “As I have said, Father, I should be pleased to ride to Avignon and present myself to whatever demands the Holy Father requires of me. There is no need to treat me, and certainly not the boy, as a prisoner or a criminal.”

  “After all we’ve heard of you? Surely there is a demonic presence here,” Renart said, “in either one or the both of you. The sooner you are submitted to trial, the safer we all shall be.” He leaned down, looming over them. “In fact, given how widely traveled you seem to be, sir, I shouldn’t wonder if this pestilence itself is linked to your coming.” Jude shrank against Elisha’s side, his jaw clenched so tightly that Elisha feared for his teeth.

  “In the interests of haste, Cardinal,” Father Pierre broke in, “please allow the doctor and his son to take the horse you brought for me. I shall remain to shepherd the Jews to Avignon.” He gave a slight bow as if the cardinal had proposed this course and then dismissed him.

  Renart’s lips pinched at the reference to Jude as Elisha’s son, but neither of them corrected the impression. A demonic orphan would be ill-served in any nation, and in an enclave of priests, Elisha could only imagine what would happen to him. Even if Elisha could not protect him, at the least they would not be alone. “Very well,” the Cardinal snapped. “See if you cannot shepherd them to the proper obedience to the Lord.” He jabbed the sign of the cross over his chest and jerked the reins to swing his horse away.

  “Cardinal,” said Father Osbert carefully. “I fear that the Holy Father may be displeased if Father Pierre does not accompany us back to the city.”

  “Then Pierre can explain to His Holiness that he felt it more important to consort with Jews than to answer the summons of God’s representative on this earth. Come—we have wasted enough time already, Father Osbert.”

  “I would request that the inquisition wait for my own presence, Cardinal,” Father Pierre called out, plucking up his robe to trot a few steps after the retreating horse. “I have observations of this man from his time in Rome which may be pertinent.”

  The cardinal’s servant brought up the empty horse, richly arrayed with silver on its bridle and saddle, and a velvet blanket decked with the fleur-de-lis. Elisha mounted and put down his arm to swing Jude up behind him. The boy clung about his waist, his every muscle taut, and Elisha almost wished the ship remained in harbor so he could send the child away from anyone who caused him such terror. How would he balance his responsibility to Jude with the problems that faced him now? How could he?

  They rode at the center of the gathering, Harald not far off, at ease in soldier’s garb, one hand resting at his thigh as he rode, giving no sign at all of their acquaintance. Elisha longed to pepper him with questions. Where was Katherine, and what had brought Harald here, away from the royal court? Clearly, Harald’s work required secrecy and so, Elisha ignored him as well. Through the contact of Jude’s arms, clenched around his middle, Elisha said, “The slender guard on our right is a friend. He’s the man who gave me those blades. He is here in secret, but he will help us if we need him. Harald is his name.”

  In a long afternoon of riding that made Elisha’s legs ache and his empty stomach feel more queasy than ever, they reached Avignon, a walled city at the banks of a broad river, joined by a long bridge to a smaller city dominated by the ramparts of a great castle. The party had stretched out, Cardinal Renart still in the lead, but the inquisitor dropped back, closer to Elisha, watching him. “The land here belongs to the Holy Father, given him by Queen Giovanna of Naples for his private use, but across the river belongs to the king, King Phillip, and he has built this bridge to show the union of heavenly and earthly authority,” said Father Osbert.

  When they first met, Elisha thought the inquisitor might be a French spy, but his dry words showed it was the Pope he served with all his heart. King Phillip was already a tool of the mancers—it remained to be seen if this “union” joined the Pope in such service as well.

  • • •

  At the city gates, guards pulled bars and unlocked great locks, allowing them to pass. Father Osbert covered his nose and mouth with a kerchief as they entered. A wagon-load of corpses rumbled in the other direction, and the winds carried the scent of sickness and death. At least here, they still had men to carry away the dead.

  The papal palace occupied one long side of a vast square, dominated by a series of tall, square towers, marching along a hillside toward the river and its bridge. At the crest of the hill, a group of windmills swooped their long arms into the sunset, gathering rose and golden light and bringing it downward, the unity of Heaven and Earth indeed, but Elisha and Jude were taken aside, toward a thick, rectangular building with narrow windows and too many guards. Inside the soldiers stripped his medical kit and his every relic, eyeing them as if they were the evidence of murder, Elisha suspected his own inquisition would happen all too soon.

  Chapter 25

  As it happened, Elisha and Jude remained isolated in their prison for four days. The guards spoke little, only delivering meals twice a day through a slot in the door, removing the chamber pot, and locking the door behind them. Elisha and Jude had more space than on the ship and two narrow beds, so they occupied themselves in magic, Elisha aware at every moment of the irony and also the urgency: He was being held for sorcery, and could not stop himself even then from practicing—and from sharing his knowledge with Jude through contact, silent and precise. He introduced Jude to the laws of knowledge and mystery, though the distinctions puzzled the boy. The law of contagion, which governed the connection between a talisman and the thing it represented, Jude already knew intimately. When the tension of the truth intruded, they played at lies, each inventing ever more absurd claims to dispel the doom that seemed to hang over them. Jude practiced finding affinities between unlike things and exploiting them to magical advantage, and each little victory eased Elisha’s mind that much more.

  Their single narrow window showed a thin slice of the papal palace, shining above its city. When the breeze blew off the river, they could hear the windmills chopping the air, their sails crisp, but when the wind changed, it carried the stench of dying. The pressure of the Valley swelled daily, leaving Elisha restless. His strength slowly recovered, but the meager fare they received from the guards did little to help. The ever-present Valley made it hard to conceal his presence from any local mancers as the passage of the dead breathed straight through him, infusing him with power. At times, it flared so strongly with the dying that it pierced him all over again, evoking Vertuollo’s attack so he sat breathless, struggling to keep it away.

  On the third evening, the plate shoved through the slot on the door came with the brush of a familiar hand, and a folded bit of paper. In German, it read, “Courage. She comes. Trial tomorrow.” He wished Harald could linger long enough to talk with him, but understood why it could not be so. She comes: Katherine. Trial tomorrow. That night, Elisha dreamed of fire, burning again as if w
ith fever, limbs bound, and no one come to save him at all. He woke to Jude’s howl of terror, the boy shaking him to make the dream stop. Two sensitives, bound to each other by affection as well as by the lessons they shared; their awareness of each other increased daily. Just as once Elisha and Mordecai had come to know each other, a dangerous intimacy.

  A key rattled at the latch and the door groaned inward. “Come!” barked the guard outside, leader of a phalanx of men with Harald among them, straight and silent. Jude took a deep breath, but did not cry out. Instead, he crafted a projection of confidence even as he glanced uncertainly at Elisha. Together, they walked out of the building and across the great plaza to the papal palace. Would the Pope himself oversee such a trial? The heat of early summer gave way immediately to chill and gloom inside the thick stone building. In a large chamber with richly painted walls and carved capitals on every column, an assembly of clergymen already waited with Father Osbert at their head and Cardinal Renart at his right hand. Echoes reached Elisha from several points in the crowd, and he found Guy de Chauliac occupying a bench to one side. Did he still have the tainted sachet Danek made, or did it even now rest with the Pope, infecting him? Then all other thought left him. Right next to Guy sat a pale, red-haired beauty, gazing at Elisha with disinterest. Brigit.

  She wore a gown of blue that echoed every portrait of the Virgin ever painted. She must have chosen it for that reason alone; the color did not suit her, yet she glowed with youth and life, and Elisha could easily imagine her at the center of a worshipful cult. Indeed, her handmaiden, Gretchen, stood beside her, glaring at him from across the hall. Brigit idly rested her cheek on her hand, gazing into nothing, as if the proceedings bored her, or as if she remembered the angel’s wing on the day her mother had died. He caught his breath, his throat feeling suddenly too dry.

  Jude let out a cry, and Elisha turned his gaze from Brigit to find Katherine squeezing past him on the left. “I thought your true love was a man,” she said through a fleeting touch.

  “I loved Brigit,” he told her, “but she was never true. Thank you for coming.”

  “Harald said you were pale and overwrought, but you look half-dead. Who’s the boy?”

  “Step aside, milady, this is the accused.”

  “Oh, forgive me, I was simply looking for a seat.” Katherine pressed onward, his hand tingling with the sense of her concern. A pair of monks stared up at her, wide-eyed, and moved over on their bench to let her sit, continuing to stare as if at a viper. Katherine had beauty of her own, with her keen gaze and soft lips, despite the traces of silver in her hair, but only a few monks worried for their souls would spare her a glance with Brigit in the room.

  “She is our friend as well,” Elisha told Jude.

  “But she is one of them.”

  “Yes, that, too.”

  Two more mancers mingled with the crowd, one in a monk’s habit, the other a townsman, both otherwise unremarkable.

  Father Osbert motioned the soldiers forward, Elisha and Jude with them, and opened the proceedings with a prayer, then he lay his palms on the table before him and said in Latin, “You are summoned before the Inquisition to answer charges of black magic in the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in August of the year of our Lord, 1347. For the benefit of those gathered, allow me to state that I was sent to England on behalf of the Holy Office of the Inquisition last year to investigate the rumor of miracles or magic in regards to the death of King Hugh and subsequent accession of his son, King Thomas. I was therefore present in that land at the time of the events under consideration here.” He glanced over at Cardinal Renart who said, “Proceed.” The cardinal-mancer added a spike of menace that drew a yelp of fear from Jude.

  Every eye turned to the boy as he burrowed closer to Elisha’s side.

  “Who is this child and why does he have such a strong reaction in the presence of the men of God?” Renart rose from his ornate chair and strode closer, his red robes sweeping the floor.

  Jude cried out, then stuffed his hand into his mouth, trying to hide. Elisha sent him strength, pleading with him to stay silent as Elisha explained, “He is my ward, Your Eminence, and I am treating his condition.”

  “His . . . condition? And what condition would that be?”

  Renart was using Jude’s fragility to undermine Elisha’s confidence and suggest a demonic association to the inquisitors. “It is not relevant to the matter at hand, Your Eminence.” Elisha stared him down, in spite of the fact that Renart stood a few inches taller. He projected his power. “Please do not make the plight of a sick child an object of the inquisition.”

  “I am inclined to agree with the accused, Your Eminence,” Father Osbert said. “We are here to examine the accused, not to concern ourselves with his ward.”

  “Then I suggest his ward should be removed from the chamber so that he and the court may concentrate on the matter at hand.” Renart spread his own hands, displaying the patently clear logic of this suggestion.

  “I have no objection, Your Eminence,” Father Osbert said.

  Elisha protested, “He is fearful of being in a foreign place, surrounded by strangers, Your Eminence. For his health, I would rather he stay with me.”

  Renart gestured then toward Guy. “We have with us the Holy Father’s own physician. He can accept your ward until such time as it is appropriate to return him—and he can oversee any necessary treatments for the boy’s well-being.”

  Standing abruptly, Guy gave a heavy sigh and a shake of his head. “Your Eminence, I’ve met this child before, in the hospital at Salerno.”

  “You see?” Renart displayed this evidence to the crowd. “Then you are ideally suited to care for him.”

  Guy’s head kept shaking. “No, I’m afraid not. While in hospital, the child displayed an almost total madness, to the extreme of fighting the nuns who tried to feed him, in addition to wild outbursts in the presence of physicians and others who attempted to treat him.” His eyes met Elisha’s the bushy eyebrows raised. “In fact, it speaks rather well to the medical skill of the accused that the child has shown such marked improvement in the short weeks since I last saw him.”

  Elisha bowed his head slightly in thanks, but Renart pressed, “What was his diagnosis at that time?”

  Again, Guy hesitated. “He was remitted to us when the church was not able to treat him.”

  “The church? What role could the church have in treating problems like those you describe?”

  Guy’s throat bobbed, and his mouth worked as if he were chewing something over, then he faced the inquisitor Father Osbert. “Father, the boy was believed to suffer a demonic possession. No attempt at exorcism resulted in improvement.”

  “Explaining his wild behavior in the presence of priests.” The cardinal swept forward, causing Jude to flinch and whimper. “The demon within this child fears the men of God and the Word of God.” He jabbed a finger toward Jude. “I would not presume to diagnose illness, Doctor, but it is not medical skill, it is demonic knowledge that bonds these two. The child is quiet in the presence of the accused because they share a passion for the devil, and he howls in the face of clergy to warn the accused of the advance of his enemies.”

  The murmuring of the crowd rose to a of rumble of shock.

  “For Heaven’s sake,” Elisha shouted over them, “He’s just scared. He was raised in misery, a prisoner to his own father, he has a right to his fear when so many priests and doctors have hurt him rather than helping him as they should. Where’s Father Pierre Roger who sailed with us from Rome? He can attest that Jude showed him no such fear.” He searched the room, and did not find the young priest. “Where is he?”

  “You are bold to call upon Heaven, sinner,” said the cardinal.

  Father Osbert said. “We were indeed asked to stay the trial until Father Pierre could be present. Unfortunately, he was injured during his travel to arrive here, an
d the decision was made to go on without him.”.

  Elisha stepped forward. “Injured? What happened? Were they attacked?”

  Renart stalked nearer to the head table. “Another incident which is not germane to this trial. Why does the accused reject examination when it speaks to the question of demonic possession, then seek to distract the proceedings with irrelevancies of his own?”

  This provocation swelled Elisha’s fury, but he kept it tightly bound. Renart’s purpose could only be served by Elisha’s anger escaping in a public forum, especially with the Valley so close to him, the potential for deadly magic hovered in his fingertips—exactly what the inquisition sought to prove. “Father Pierre looked after us in Rome and on the voyage, and I haven’t been told of his injury.” He cast a dark look at the soldiers positioned around the room. “It seems to me that one of us doctors should be with him, and not in here.”

  “I have done what could be done,” Guy snapped, retreating to his bench. “It is in God’s hands.”

  In God’s hands. The physician’s way of passing on the blame for injuries he could not heal. Elisha forced down his anger. “Please, Father, is there no way that I can see him?”

  “Not while this trial is in session, certainly. And not if you should be found guilty and in need of penance to return to the fold of the Church.”

  “On with it then, Father,” said the Cardinal. “Though perhaps it would be more wise to clear the chamber of any unnecessary persons, to safeguard them from the presence of demons.”

  “There are no demons here,” said Elisha, then offered a grim smile and added, “Your Eminence.”

  “I think we have, at the least, established that you are in no position to judge such a thing.” The mancer stalked back to his seat, spreading his robes as he sat, hands folded. “Proceed.”

  Father Osbert took a sip from a goblet, and said, “It is customary at this time to ask if there is any man who bears you a mortal grudge and may have added to the accusations against you in the hopes of personal gain, but in this case—”